In economic approaches it is often argued that reputation considerations influence the behavior of individuals or firms and that reputation influences the outcome of markets. Empirical evidence is rare though. In this contribution we argue that a positive reputation of sellers should have an...

A contest is a situation in which individuals expend resources in order to win valuable prize(s). 'Sabotage' is a deliberate, and often costly and illegal, act of damaging a rival's likelihood of winning the contest. It is done by exerting resources to negatively influence the effectiveness of a...

We consider procurement of an innovation from heterogeneous sellers. Innovations are random but depend on unobservable effort and private information. We compare two procurement mechanisms where potential sellers first bid in an auction for admission to an innovation contest. After the contest,...

This contribution revisits the problem of allocating R&D subsidies by government agencies. Typically, the applicants' financial constraints are private information. The literature has recommended the use of auctions in order to reduce information rents and thus improve the efficiency of how...

We consider innovation contests for the procurement of an innovation under moral hazard and adverse selection. Innovators have private information about their abilities, and choose unobservable effort in order to produce innovations of random quality. Innovation quality is not contractible. We...